Joy Bonds! Have you ever heard this term before? Most fathers have not. Let me help you understand it by giving you a scenario. Have you ever been with a group of women when a mother brings in her young child. What usually happens. All the women want to hold them and the men act […]

Joy Bonds! Have you ever heard this term before? Most fathers have not. Let me help you understand it by giving you a scenario. Have you ever been with a group of women when a mother brings in her young child. What usually happens. All the women want to hold them and the men act like they don’t care. What the women know instinctively is that they are trying to connect with the child and they do that through their words and touch. They know when they’ve made that connection because the child responds with it’s eyes and facial expression. Joy bonds is a term used when someone is glad to see you and they reflect it in their eyes and facial expression, usually a smile. Fathers, we need to realize the different stages of our child’s life emotionally if we want to raise them to be a mature person. All of us have this same need to develop joy bonds with those around us and this is the first learning stage. A child will go from pain, usually demonstrated by crying, to joy when their pain is addressed and met. This happens over and over again through the course of every day. A child needs to have joy bonds with both of their parents during this stage from birth through around three. If they don’t learn to develop their joy bonds it will hinder them as they continue to mature. Fathers need to understand that physical growth and emotional maturity are two different aspects of their growing up journey. We can not stop a child from growing and physically maturing, but we can hurt them and stunt their emotional grow by how we handle them from birth on. I didn’t understand this when my children were young and growing and I did a lot of things that had a negative impact on their lives. But I read a book “The Stages of a Man’s Life” by E.James Wilder that really opened up my eyes. I hope this information is helpful to you and that you’ll take the time to connect with you child through your smile until they respond with one of their own.